Very hard question

Fir3Fly1995

I asked this question on Facebook but nobody even liked it. Never mind try to answer it.

Now. Light speed is 2.9K Km/s roughly. Or 1c. According to a game I play called Elite: Dangerous speed is as follows.
All metric.
1M/s
1000M/s = 1Km/s
1000Km/s = 1Mm/s or megameter
1000Mm/s = 1c or 1x the speed of light.

Now the question.

I am stranded 122Ly from home.
My ship can supercruise at 2001c (2,001x the speed of light).

Without jumping into Hyperspace that's the max my FSD can carry me and my fuel. So. We have distance and speed. I just need time.

I know it's not possible for my ship to traverse 1ly as I would run out of fuel before I get there. But let's say I had an unlimited fuel supply. Then how long would it take?

I tried working it out and determined it would take approximately 11.25 days to traverse the distance. 4.5Ly was to take 18 hrs. But I want to know in hours days months and years. So I shall reiterate the question so my waffle doesn't get in the way.

I am moving at 2001c and need to cover 122Ly. How long will it take.

Many thanks in advance if you can answer and show me the workings.

zagmund

Depends on what happens when you roll the 17 sided dice and whether your opponent plays his "slows down speed of light" card at the same time, innit?

z

Fir3Fly1995

Hehehe. I wish. This a game that operates with physics. Which means that because I'm so far away form a system (the entire galaxy is ours on a 1:1 scale) so I'd be be 10,000Ls from civilisation at times and nobody would bother me.

dlouth15

Time = Distance / Velocity

So what you want is T = (122 Ly) / (2001 c)

A light year is c * year

So T = (122 * c * year) / (2001 c) = (122 year) / 2001 = 0.06097 years = 22.254 days

= 22 days, 6 hours 5 minutes 50 seconds.

Fir3Fly1995

dlouth15 wrote:

= 22 days, 6 hours 5 minutes 50 seconds.

dlouth15 wrote:

So T = (122 * c * year) / (2001 c) = (122 year) / 2001 = 0.06097 years = 22.254 days

dlouth15 wrote:

A light year is c * year

dlouth15 wrote:

So what you want is T = (122 Ly) / (2001 c)

dlouth15 wrote:

Time = Distance / Velocity

That's brilliant. Thanks very much. Couldn't figure it out. Was trying to convert everything into kilometers. Lol. Thanks. I defo haven't enough fuel to do that anyways. That's for sure.

dlouth15

Fir3Fly1995 wrote: »

That's brilliant. Thanks very much. Couldn't figure it out. Was trying to convert everything into kilometers. Lol. Thanks. I defo haven't enough fuel to do that anyways. That's for sure.

Yeah, it is easy to get bogged down if you try to convert everything to base units. Trick is to stick to symbols as much as possible and try to get things to cancel out. Luckily both the distance and the speed are expressed in terms of c and so the result doesn't depend on the value of c.

Fir3Fly1995

dlouth15 wrote:

Yeah, it is easy to get bogged down if you try to convert everything to base units. Trick is to stick to symbols as much as possible and try to get things to cancel out. Luckily both the distance and the speed are expressed in terms of c and so the result doesn't depend on the value of c.

The red part just got me confused. I mean... does it not depend on the c?

brianwalshcork

This bit:

So T = (122 * c * year) / (2001 c)


You've got c in the dividend and the divisor, so they cancel out leaving:

T = (122 year) / 2001

dlouth15

Fir3Fly1995 wrote: »

The red part just got me confused. I mean... does it not depend on the c?

The 'c's cancel out since there's a c above and below the line in the equation

T = (122 * c * year) / (2001 c)

So no matter what the value of c is we get the same result.

bnt

Slight correction to the OP, though it doesn't change the result: the real speed of light in a vacuum is close to 300,000 km/s or 3e8 m/s. So, the game c of 1000 Mm/s = 1 e (3+6) = 1e9 m/s = 3.33x faster than real c. Weird that they couldn't just use the real value ...

Fir3Fly1995

I might be a bit wrong though. When I'm watching my speed it goes from Mm/s to c it goes up very fast. I'll take a look later on in the evening when I start playing.

dibkins

Does Elite model relativity?:P

Fir3Fly1995

Ok. Correction to the measurements. 30Mm/s = 0.10c.

Fir3Fly1995

dibkins wrote:

Does Elite model relativity?

I think so. The galaxy is represented on a 1:1 scale. With 400Bn star systems and counting. However that could be classed as an advertisement.